1. Field of the Disclosure
Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to methods and apparatus to support and/or move an end of a tubular member. More specifically, embodiments disclosed herein relate to apparatus that are used to support a tubular member during assembly, such as oilfield tubular members that are disposed downhole.
2. Background Art
In oilfield exploration and production operations, various oilfield tubulars are used to perform important tasks, including, but not limited to, drilling the wellbore and casing the drilled wellbore. For example, a long assembly of drill pipes, known in the industry as a drill string, may be used to rotate a drill bit at a distal end to create the wellbore. Furthermore, after a wellbore has been created, a casing string may be disposed downhole into the wellbore and cemented in place to stabilize, reinforce, or isolate (among other functions) portions of the wellbore. As such, strings of drill pipe and casing may be connected together, end-to-end by threaded connections, where a female “pin” member of a first tubular is configured to threadably engage a corresponding male “box” member of a second tubular. Alternatively, a casing string may be made-up of a series of male-male ended casing joints coupled together by female-female couplers. The process by which the threaded connections are screwed together is called “making-up” a threaded joint and the process by which the connections are disassembled is referred to “breaking-out” the threaded joint. As would be understood by one having ordinary skill, individual pieces (or “joints”) of oilfield tubulars come in a variety of weights, diameters, configurations, and lengths.
Referring to FIG. 1, a perspective view is shown of a drilling rig 101 used to run tubular members 111 (e.g., casing, drill pipe, etc.) downhole into a wellbore. As shown, drilling rig 101 includes a frame structure known as a “derrick” 102 from which a traveling block 103 and an elevator 105 and/or a top drive (not shown) may be used to manipulate (e.g., raise, lower, rotate, hold, etc.) tubular members 111. As shown, traveling block 103 is a device that is located at or near the top of derrick 102, in which traveling block 103 may move up-and-down (i.e., vertically as depicted) to raise or lower tubular members 111. As shown, traveling block may be a simple “pulley-style” block and may have a hook 104 from which objects below (e.g., elevator 105) may be hung. Additionally, elevator 105 may also be coupled below traveling block 103 and/or a top drive (not shown) to selectively grab or release tubular members 111 as they are to be raised or lowered within and from derrick 102. Typically, elevator 105 includes movable gripping components (e.g., slips) movable between an open position and a closed position (shown in FIG. 1). In the closed position, the movable components form a load bearing ring (or shoulder) about or upon which tubular members 111 may bear and be lifted. In the open position, the movable components of elevator 105 may move away from one another to allow the tubular members 111 to be brought within or removed from elevator 105.
When assembling a string of tubular members 111 together, the tubular members 111 may be removed from a pipe rack 112 and pulled towards an access opening 121, for example, a v-door, within the derrick 102 of the drilling rig 101. The tubular members 111 may be loaded onto a pipe ramp 125 adjacent to the access opening 121, in which a rigidly mounted end stop 131 may abut the ends of the tubular members 111 to support the tubular members 111 up against access opening 121. An elevator, for example 105 in FIG. 1, or other lifting device (e.g., cable and/or winch) may then grasp an end of a tubular member 111 located within access opening 121 and may then raise the tubular member 111 up in derrick 102 so that it may be threadably connected to the remainder of a downhole string 115 of tubular members 111. The reverse process, or one substantially similar thereto, may be used, such as when removing tubular members from the drilling rig 101.
However, when raised into derrick 102, tubular members 111 are usually suspended by their upper (proximal) end, and therefore may swing and have a significant amount of movement as received within derrick 102, particularly at their lower (distal) end. Further, tubular members 111 typically are about 40 ft (12 m) in length and 66 lbs/ft (98 kg/m) in weight. As such, tubular members 111 may be cumbersome and/or difficult to handle because of their size, weight, and length, particularly when manually manipulating tubular members 111. Furthermore, the process of manually handling tubular members 111 consumes time, slowing production and therefore increasing drilling rig costs. Accordingly, there exists a need to increase the ability of controlling tubular members 111 when being disposed within a drilling rig, as may be common within the oilfield industry.